This invention relates to personal safety devices. Specifically, it relates to devices that can be carried by a person and used to sound an alarm and to ward off an attacker with a spray of a noxious gas.
There are many personal safety devices on the market today. Some of them are whistles, which could be used by the user to alarm others in the vicinity of the danger. Thus, a potential robbery could be averted by a victim's action of sounding the whistle and alarming people on the street of the need to come to the rescue of the victim. However, sounding an alarm may not be enough to avert an attack. Many violent crimes may be committed by attackers who are simply too bold to be scared away by a sound of the alarm.
Other types of personal safety devices are designed to spray an attacker with a noxious gas. Such devices are widely known as pepper sprays or MACE. A noxious gas or mixture of gasses is stored inside of a pressurized container. When the device is activated, the noxious gas escapes the container in a spray which could be directed at a face of an attacker. These devices could be effective in discouraging a would be attacker from committing a crime or in allowing the victim a chance to escape while the attacker is distracted by the effects of the noxious gas sprayed in his face.
However, one of the shortcomings of the noxious spray devices lies in the fact that they do not alarm the attacker of the impending spray defense. Thus, attacker could proceed with the attack and wound or otherwise harm the victim before the victim has a chance to use the spray. It is plausible to assume that some attackers would not proceed with an attack if a loud sound alarm was sounded by the victim prior to use of the spray. Additionally, use of the spray does not alert others in the area of the victim's distress since sprays do not make much noise.
What is needed is a personal safety device designed to be capable of sounding an alarm and, if necessary, of spraying the attacker with a noxious gas. Such device could avert many violent crimes by discouraging attackers with a sound alarm. Furthermore, if the sound alarm does not scare away the attacker, then the victim would have an option to use the noxious gas spray to stop the attacker.